Fading Summer, Finding New Songs & Flying Crows

Late Summer Sunset by Red Haircrow

When I am trying to relax, to slow my heart-rate, and calm my mind, I lay and look out of the window and from my view I see the top of a neighboring apartment building and the leafy crowns of several tall trees.

On Friday, it was particularly windy in a city that is often windy, but it was unusual in that they had been calm for a while but picked up again. The trees bent with the wind, sometimes showing their pale grey trunks, their leaves rippling furiously like the sound of rushing waters…and a bird, a lone bird fought against the wind.

There are many crows here, large ones, though grey and black, unlike in the area of the US where I’m from where they are all black. They are quite strong and known to be crafty. With a flurry of wing beats, it continued to fight, though still barely moving ahead. It paused, it tested, tried to glide for a moment, yet still made little headway before giving a sudden valiant burst, tilted it wings to the side and with a perfect dip caught an updraft. With renewed effort and almost a sense of avian triumphant it shot upward, over the next trees and from my view.

My heart and spirit has felt like this bird, my namesake: that I’ve fought, and am still fighting. I’ve been honest and stood for what I believed in while still respecting others. I write and express with all of my heart, and never with deception or ulterior motives, nor would ever consider trying to “get back at someone” for whatever reason, justified or not, but instead try to appeal to them for reason, yet for some, they seem incapable. I’ve been fortunate to meet some truly extraordinary people during these times also, that are perfectly ordinary in that there are many good people out there, struggling their themselves in some ways, making sense of their world and needs, but instead of trying to tear down others to build themselves up, the offered truth and honesty. The special beauty of just being human.

After a stroke in April 2012, I recovered somewhat, but my health is problematic at times. There are things I cannot do anymore, strength I don’t have physically especially after major surgery just a few months before that. A full time student, with public transport: working at another venue and time spent in transit equal to a full time job, besides Flying With Red Haircrow and being a single parent of a special needs child. You get very, very tired anyway besides health issues. You do what you have to, however….

I’ve always been very independent, and would tell myself, “You can make it!” even when I was in so much pain, whether emotional, mental or physical. I literally just kept putting one foot in front of the other because there was no option for stopping, no reason, to keep going on was all I knew how to do. For the first time in decades this year, I almost reached the point where I didn’t feel I could go on. I was utterly exhausted by so many things, and inexplicably bombarded by so many others, when I felt darkness falling it seemed like a mercy after fighting for so long but like that bird, instinctually, knowing there was no other true option, it, like I, had to find a new way. Move a new way. Sing a new song or one that you had forgotten.

I made it to the lake this past weekend, and though still feeling physically poorly, it felt good to be there.